It's Not Unusual
by Fear-Of-The-Cold
Summary: I bet you never knew that LeBeau's middle name was "Bugaloo Shrimp"!


_Note: I do not own any part of Hogan's Heroes, or the song. Also song lyrics are in italics. This is just something I came up with and wrote in about two hours, so its not much, but I hope you like it anyways!_

LeBeau followed the others inside after roll call, filing in one by one until the small room was packed once more. Most of the men headed immediately for the coffee pot, though for once the morning weather was rather mild. They still needed their morning brew, and LeBeau scurried over to hand it out before anyone else could go near his stove. After each man was drank his fill, they began to disperse. Some climbed onto their bunks to read or write a letter, others moved outside to get ready for the football match scheduled for this morning. For the first time in a long time, everyone in camp was taking a long-deserved day off. Even Kinch had been pulled off of radio duty to play striker for the Americans.

Most of the command crew made their way outside, but LeBeau hung back. Hogan noticed, and turned back to the French corporal.

"You sure you don't want to play LeBeau? Newkirk said they're still short one midfielder."

LeBeau shook his head, but grinned as he did so.

"Non, thank you mon colonel. Even if I did play, they would still have one short midfielder."

"All right," Colonel Hogan replied, laughing, "I won't force you to play. What are you going to do instead?"

"I have a letter to write to my sister," LeBeau shrugged.

"Again?"

"Oui."

"Huh. Well, maybe you could come watch for a little anyways. Should be a good match!"

Hogan pulled the door shut behind him, and LeBeau turned back to the stove to finish cleaning up. Then he walked over to his footlocker and, true to his word, grabbed a pen and paper. However he did not sit down on his bunk to write, but triggered the mechanism above it that lowered the bunk to reveal the hidden tunnel entrance. Before any of the other men in the room could comment on this, he jumped down the ladder and landed on the tunnel floor. He released the trap door and made his way towards Carter's laboratory.

Before he even reached the lab, LeBeau could already smell the chemicals wafting into the corridor. He wrinkled his nose, but he entered the dark room anyway. While he hadn't brought a light, he only had to go a few feet inside the door, reaching behind the nearest shelf until his hand closed around what he wanted. He pulled gently on the flat, square object until it slid out from its hiding place. After breathing a sigh of relief that it was still there, and that Carter hadn't set it on fire with one of his experiments, he turned and left the room.

The laboratory wasn't an ideal hiding place; it carried a lot of risk in that Carter occasionally tried to blow himself up. But at the same time, LeBeau knew that no one would ever look there.

He hurried back to the ladder, tucking the object up underneath his sweater as he jogged. After receiving the "All Clear" signal, he checked that it was firmly in place one last time before ascending. He emerged back into the barracks to see Olsen standing over him, and no else around. Everyone must have gone to watch the football game already.

"Hey LeBeau," greeted Olsen, "What did you have to get?"

"Ummm...cologne," LeBeau answered, thinking fast.

"Cologne?"

"Oui. For my letter to Clarisse. She sends me letters with perfume; I thought I would return the favour."

"I thought the Colonel said you were writing your sister?"

LeBeau cursed himself inwardly for forgetting.

"Please Olsen," he said somewhat condescendingly, "Would I be sending a letter with cologne on it to my sister?"

"Guess not," Olsen answered thoughtfully, "Well, whatever you're doing, you better make it quick so you can catch the soccer game!"

LeBeau nodded, but Olsen was already out the door. Then he shook his head exasperatedly.

"Soccer," he muttered, "Americans know nothing."

Then he proceeded to put the paper and pen back in his footlocker, unused. The package that he had retrieved from the tunnels, however, stayed in its hiding place beneath his sweater. He closed his footlocker and left the barracks, opening the door only as much as he needed. Then he peeked cautiously towards the group of men surrounding the game, and decided that they were indeed focussed on the game. Taking care to ensure that his hidden object stayed tucked, he moved quickly and quietly towards the rec hall. He didn't look back, but concentrated on the path in front of him. Therefore he didn't notice the silent pair of eyes watching his progress.

LeBeau slipped into the rec hall without a problem, the guards had already unlocked the doors in preparation for the table tennis tournament to follow the football match. As he closed the door, he pulled the object out from beneath his clothes and looked at it with a silly, excited grin. Then he made his way to the record player on the other side of the room. From within the flap of the object in his hands, he pulled out a shiny record. The grin didn't leave his face as he placed the record on the player and it began to spin.

The opening notes rang out almost too loud, but LeBeau knew that the others were too busy to notice. So he allowed himself to tap his foot along with the trombones and other brass instruments.

"_Ba-bada, ba-bada,_" he sang along with the beat.

As the rest of the band joined in, so too did the rest of his body join in with his feet. His entire frame moved along with the beat. But it wasn't until the singer joined in that he really cut loose.

"_It's not unusual to be loved by anyone! It's not unusual to have fun with anyone!"_

At first LeBeau tried to resist just to see if he could, but the beat was too infectious and the singer's obvious enthusiasm to contagious. With a childish grin on his face he started to dance, waving his arms and moving his feet to steps that only he knew. But he didn't sing the lyrics, he wouldn't, he refused to...

"_But when I see you hanging about with anyone, it's not unusual to see me cry."_

He couldn't take it any longer, and he mouthed the words along with the singer, exaggerating the song's emotions in his facial expressions.

_"Oh I wanna' die!"_

LeBeau spun about with glee, sliding his feet along the floor and waving his arms back and forth in the same rhythm as his feet. He slid over to the table tennis and snatched up a racket. Swinging around on his heel, he held the racket up to his mouth and pretended to shout into it.

_"It's not unusual to go out at any time but when I see you out and about it's such a crime."_

With surprising strength he leaped onto the table, leaning back over his feet as he sang to the adoring fans that crowded the stage. Beautiful women swooned as he winked at them, one even fainted when he leaned out over the crowd and touched her hand. He held his microphone close to his face, humming along to the band seductively as he gazed into the eyes of his fans.

_"If you should ever want to be loved by anyone, it's not unusual."_

He reached out over the crowd, swaying with the song and moving his hips to the beat. And as the singer belted out the next line, LeBeau found that his own voice had joined in for real and was singing earnestly.

"_It happens every day no matter what you say!"_

As he bellowed out the lyrics, he closed his eyes in order to achieve the perfect tone. He held the last note for even longer than the singer himself. When he finally ran out of breath, he opened his eyes and spun to look upon his adoring public.

Only this time, his adoring public were four very amused, very shocked men standing in the doorway of the rec hall. And this time he was not standing on stage holding a state-of-the-art microphone, but on a table with a tennis racket held up to his open mouth.

None of the men made a sound, although the music continued unabated. They simply stood there in shock, four of them struggling not to laugh, one of them barely even able to think past his embarrassment.

Finally LeBeau slowly came down from the table. He walked to the record player and turned it off. He very deliberately placed the record back in its case and carried it with him as he walked towards the door. There he paused in front of his friends, who all watched him with barely contained laughter. He held his head high and pushed the tennis racket he was still holding into Newkirk's shaking hands. Then, with all the dignity he had left, he turned and walked away from the rec hall.

As soon as he was out of earshot, the others broke down into tears of laughter. Kinch had to lean against the wall to keep from falling; Newkirk and Carter just leaned on each other as peals of laughter shook through them. Hogan tried to maintain a little decorum by remaining standing without the aid of anyone or anything, but even he couldn't help but laugh.

"Well," Hogan said, chuckling, "I guess we know who LeBeau's sister is now."

This made the other men laugh even harder, for they remembered now all the times that LeBeau had gone to write to his sister and had wanted to do it in the privacy of the rec hall.

"You were right Carter," Newkirk choked out.

"I-I was?" Carter asked, hardly able to contain his mirth.

"That **was **worth missing the football match!"

_Note: The song is "It's Not Unusual" by Tom Jones. And yes, I know it wasn't released until 1965, but I was watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and I thought that I could definitely see LeBeau doing Carlton's dance. Which is what he was doing, in case I didn't describe it well enough. So I guess Tom Jones does a little time travelling in his spare time! Anyways, hope you liked it.  
><em>


End file.
